Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Conservative grassroots

I went to
Eastleigh on Wednesday to "add my strength to yours", as
Fotherington-Thomas used to say in the Molesworth books, and was given pledge
letters to deliver in two areas. There will always be errors in a canvass, but
three of the households to which the letters were addressed had UKIP posters in
a window, two had Liberal Democrats ones, and a smattering had posted notices
saying "No more by-election leaflets, please" (or less polite
variants on that theme.)

On my way back to
the campaign office, I ran into a Conservative MP who was also a senior member
of the campaign team. He said that pledge letters had not necessarily been sent
to voters who had been canvassed, but to those who had been identified by Mosaic - the
"unique consumer classification based on in-depth demographic data".
It's a statement of the obvious that seeking to identify voters through Mosaic
is no substitute for having local people on the ground.

As I pointed out in the Daily Telegraph last week, Eastleigh is an extreme example of a
problem that has haunted the party for years, and is coming home to roost now
we're in government. We are feeling the consequences of the decline of
political party membership - in my view, more than Labour, which has the trade
unions to fall back on in election campaigns. (They ran an effective 'ground
war" in 2010, despite Brown's dire "air war", helping to hold a
vital tranche of midlands and northern marginals.)

During the course
of this Parliament, Tim Montgomerie and I have been told, during three visits
to CCHQ, first, that local Associations were more of a hindrance than a help at
the last election; second, that they are indispensable to winning seats (the
senior party figure we met told us said that CCHQ was considering presenting
awards at the annual conference to Associations with big membership increases)
and, third, that local Associations are past their sell-by date as a
vote-gathering force, and that local networks of leafletters are more reliable.

I agree that the
old-fashioned Association model doesn't work, but this chopping and changing is
alarming. More importantly, those local networks don't cut the mustard.
Leafletters have their limits. Local activists involved in "social
action" - many of those I know and have known are involved in local
charities and voluntary groups and clubs - are effectively ambassadors for the
party. This is no less true of councillors.

I got a text this
morning from a campaigning Conservative MP which reads as follows:

"Eastleigh
is not just UKIP but crap party organisation, second-rate officials, and centre
not understanding letting grassroots wither. Need mass membership prog and
clearout of current officials many of whom have been there for years."

In response to
which - and in summary - three points:

·A poor craftsman blames his tools, so I'm reluctant
to lump the blame for Eastleigh on officials. But my source is well-informed
about how the party machine now works. As Tim Montgomerie wrote earlier today, we'll return to the subject soon.

·The party sought to follow the Obama campaign
during the Eastleigh contest by building up an Obama-style database of voters.
But "boots on the ground" were essential to Obama's campaigning
strategy. The Tories had few indigenous ones in Eastleigh.

·David Cameron has sought to follow Tony Blair by
defining himself against his party. ("I am the heir to Blair.")
Downing Street isn't slow to point out that he polls ahead of it. But while
this may help the Conservatives in the short-term, it is harming them in the
long - even in the medium. Boosting your own brand at the expense of your party
will - arguably - bring it benefits for as long as it wins general elections.
But it didn't win the last one. And Cameron may well not be in Downing Street
after the next.

Response to Paul:

"It
was all so predictable. The destruction of the Party's "grass roots"
has been going on for some years. As a membership organisation the Conservative
Party is in terminal decline. By the time of the General Election it will
consist solely of Councillors, their families and friends, and there will be
fewer of them than there are today.
If the Party had been a democratic organisation it would have kept in touch
with the membership which keeps it in touch with the electorate. It has failed
and now the chickens are coming home to roost. How sad that those in power
refuse to give up any of their power even if the end result is that they cease
to have any power at all".

2 comments:

Though I fully accept that a lack of a strong local association was one of the factors in losing in Eastleigh, I think that it was a combination of several other factors as well. I went there several times and the local HQ was well organised, literature reasonable, though a bit bland. One factor which didn't help was the way the party appeared to keep the candidate away from key interviews, hustings etc. She was a good candidate and needed to be seen to be leading the campaign. Of course the UKIP protest vote was crucial and I doubt we would have won in any seat with similar voring records against that.

About Me

• In 1995 wrote a Paper for the Bow Group – “The Conservative Party for the 21st Century” proposing a Party Constitution. - introduced in 1998.
Author: “Our Fight for Democracy” – a history of democracy in the United Kingdom.
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